Nothing like chocolate: Sex trafficking and child labor trafficking

Trafficking has become a key buzzword for Third World development in the twenty-first century. As this volume demonstrates, there is no shortage of writing on the topic. The question remains, however: why is it that discussions of trafficking focus almost exclusively on sex and related aspects? It is, of course, true that sex trafficking does damage substantial numbers of people, women and children in particular. Our chapter certainly reminds readers of that. But why is it that sex trafficking is not usually linked to other forms of trafficking of children and adults, such as in the trafficking of labor, sexual or otherwise? Tackling that question in any depth is beyond the purview of our chapter, although we do discuss it briefly at the end of this chapter. However, it is this question that informs our writing, as we illustrate how sex trafficking is a symptom of the current world we inhabit, as indeed are other forms of trafficking in scholarly writings and campaigns. In this chapter, we first critique the overemphasis on sex trafficking. We next discuss the trafficking of children in the Ivory Coast who are used as workers to harvest cocoa beans.